Rome (AFP) - Italy hosted numerous national leaders in Rome on Sunday, at a conference aimed at extending an EU-backed deal with Tunisia to curb the arrival of migrants to European shores.

As presidents, premiers and ministers prepared to huddle for the talks, Pope Francis appealed to them to help the scores of people who try to enter Europe each year in search of a better life as they flee poverty and conflict.

“The Mediterranean can no longer be the theatre of death and inhumanity”, the pontiff said during his weekly Angelus prayer.

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni opened the talks shortly after 1100 GMT and was expected to hold a press conference after 1700 GMT, following the closed-door talks.

Meloni said talks would focus on illegal and legal immigration, refugee support and “the most important… wide cooperation to support development in Africa”.

During the 2022 election campaign that brought her to power, the far-right Meloni vowed to “stop the disembarkation” of migrants in Italy, which the government puts at nearly 80,000 coastal arrivals since January, compared to 33,000 in the same period last year.

But while the government has put obstacles in the path of humanitarian ships rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean, it has failed to stop the departures themselves, which mostly originate in Tunisia and Libya.

Italy and the European Commission have sought to step up engagement with Tunisia, promising funding if it stems emigration from its territory.

Meloni has also sought to act as an intermediary between Tunisia – cash-strapped and on the cusp of a major debt crisis – and the International Monetary Fund, where a nearly $2 billion bailout package for the North African country has stalled amid an IMF demand for structural reforms.

Last week, the EU signed a memorandum of understanding with Tunisia that provides for 105 million euros ($117 million) in direct European aid to prevent the departure of migrant boats and combat smugglers.

The deal also provides for more illegal Tunisians to be repatriated, and for sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia to be sent back to their countries of origin.

A much larger EU package to Tunisia, a long-term loan of around 900 million euros proposed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in June, is conditional on approval of the IMF loan.

“This partnership with Tunisia must be a model for building new relations with our North African neighbours”, Meloni said last week during a visit to Tunis.

- EU unity -

A senior European diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed that the EU is hoping for similar partnerships with Egypt and Morocco.

“We must cooperate with the countries of North Africa, even if to do so we have to accept that they are not perfect democracies,” a Rome-based ambassador told AFP.

“There is unity in the EU on this principle.”

Attending the conference on Sunday were presidents of Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Mauritania, along with EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, plus Filippo Grandi, head of the UN refugee agency.

Prime ministers from Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta and Niger were also present, and Greece, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait sent ministers.

Notably absent were representatives from France and Spain.

Federica Infantino, researcher at the Migration Policy Centre of the European University Institute, said a new deal with Tunisia would change little.

“You can’t think of migration as the water that comes out of the tap, to be turned on and off as certain politicians see fit”, Infantino said.

But for Meloni’s political needs, there are “strong symbolic stakes”, she added.

- ‘Crime scene’ -

Human rights groups and charities that rescue migrants attempting the dangerous Mediterranean crossing are furious about the deal.

Human Rights Watch called it “a new low in the European Union’s efforts to curb migrants’ arrivals at any cost” that “pays only lip service to human rights”.

“It shows that Europe has learned nothing from its complicity in the horrendous abuses of migrants in Libya”, the group said Thursday.

“The Mediterranean is not only a graveyard. It is a crime scene”, tweeted German NGO Sea-Watch.

Independent researcher Yves Pascouau said dialogue between Europe and the countries of migrants’ departure is positive, as are attempts to boost trade and investments in green energy.

But as long as migration policy depends on European interior ministers, the issue will only be tackled from a security point of view, Pascouau noted.

According to the UN, more than 100,000 migrants arrived by sea to Europe – most to Italy – in the first six months of 2023, from the coasts of North Africa, Turkey and Lebanon.

There were just over 189,000 such arrivals last year.

With fewer than 80,000 asylum applications registered last year, Italy lags behind Germany, France, Spain and Austria.